Daily Briefing: Bar and cinema closures rub salt in wound for economy; Pandemic may hit S-REITs harder than the Financial Crisis

And Singapore will make its contact tracing tech freely available to developers worldwide.

From Bloomberg:

Singapore’s closure of bars and entertainment venues to contain the spread of coronavirus is another gut punch to the city-state’s economy already suffering from widespread disruptions to trade and tourism.

Authorities are scrambling to curb the spread of the virus after a recent spike in confirmed virus cases, now at more than 550, mainly from residents returning from overseas trips. For Singapore’s small open economy, the new restrictions will hurt consumer spending and push the nation closer to a recession.

“Tourism demand is already gone.This will rub salt into the wound of the entertainment industry given that the latest set of measures will erase domestic demand, which has already been weakened due to the outbreak,” said Irvin Seah, senior economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd. in Singapore.

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From Bloomberg:

The coronavirus outbreak may hit Singapore real estate investment trusts harder than the global financial crisis did, according to Jefferies Financial Group Inc.

Public venues such as retail malls and museums will have to ensure that groups do not exceed 10 people.

Those measures will further test investor appetite for Singapore’s REITs. With a 26% plunge, a gauge tracking them is heading for its worst quarterly drop since 2008 even though the firms offer the region’s highest yields. Unit prices have tumbled in recent weeks on mounting virus concerns and a sell-everything mentality in global markets.

The trusts have “factored in severe declines” into distribution per unit, but the impact on net operating income might be bigger than during the global financial crisis, Jefferies analyst Krishna Guha wrote in a note

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From CNBC:

Less than a week after launching an app to track potential exposure to the coronavirus, Singapore is making the technology freely available to developers worldwide.

The city-state rolled out an app called TraceTogether on 20 March and described it as a supplementary tool for its contact-tracing efforts that relied on the recall and memory of infected individuals.

Phones that have the app installed exchange short-distance Bluetooth signals when their users are near one another. Records of those encounters, including the duration, are stored in their respective phones for 21 days, according to the app’s frequently asked questions section. It added that location data is not collected.

Read more here.